Seto Kaiba

Yeah, sure thing. (Since the whole thing started from questioning the veracity of the information the VF-19 Master File copied from Chronicle, we probably should've moved the whole discussion to the Chronicle thread back on like page three anyway... the fun we have. )

Finally got confirmation that my copy of the VF-19 Master File book shipped today, it ought to arrive by this coming wednesday. Looking forward to having my own copy to examine instead of having to constantly borrow Talos's.

It's been a while since I last re-watched DYRL (due to video card issues), did he change numbers in DYRL? I know he was 011 in the beginning... maybe it was a simple slip-up? Sketchley's almost certainly right about it being an in-joke/reference though... what with Shin Kudo being 311 in Macross Zero and Hikaru being 011 in DYRL.

Okay, this is just downright immature of you sketchley... trying to bait me into a fight and attack not only my credibility, but my extension Mr March's as well, by accusing me of something I haven't done. Both of the assertions I made about your position here are accurate. You did say that you were inclined to revise your opinion of the book towards it being official because it jived with what was in Chronicle and because Kawamori was listed as the supervisor (here), and you did question the veracity of the original numbers in the Compendium (here). Since you're dead-set on being disruptive, I really have no choice but to report your post. In a word, yes. At present, the set of stats that makes the most logical sense is the set of numbers in the Macross Compendium. The initial discussion was to determine the veracity of the new numbers given in Chronicle, then turned to a discussion of the veracity of the numbers found in the Compendium and a concerted effort to determine what sources those stats'd been gleaned from... the ultimate goal being to determine whether the new numbers first printed in Macross Chronicle and copied into the Master File are intentional changes or typographical errors. At present, the majority seems to be leaning heavily towards the typo hypothesis. Unless Egan had access to a third source that clarified the issue, and kept the 68,500kg figure as a relevant-but-discredited number just for completeness's sake. The material he printed was printed with express prior permission from Big West, so he may even have had contact and clarification from them. We just have to get in touch with him and find out, assuming he even remembers. Um... at no point has ANY sheet had a retraction published for something like this. The only retractions/corrections we've gotten have been for when whole sheets have ended up with the wrong filing number and the errata section at the back of issue 50, which I'll say right now I very much doubt will correct more than a handful of the most obvious of the errors. Chronicle is not infallible... it's not even close. I could point to a good half-dozen unambiguously and demonstrably wrong pieces of information without having to take my binders off the shelf. That the error was reprinted in a book that, by all the evidence, is unofficial anyway doesn't mean anything. If they provide some kind official rationale for the change, that's all well and good. But what we have here is a set of numbers that makes no sense and doesn't support the contents of the animation, the setting, and the other things that the same damn source has to say about the aircraft. The alleged correction comes from a source that has had plenty of errors in the past and corrected none of them, and is corroborated by a book that doesn't appear to have ever been intended to be reliable in the first place. It's not corroborated by a credible source. No, it wouldn't be... but we have one set of data from a known, well-respected, credible source in contact with the franchise's owners (Egan Loo), for which we can establish the origins of the data, and the data supports what's shown in the animation, established conventions in the show's universe adhered to by other mecha in the same series, and all the other assertions we're being asked to accept about the craft. Then we have the set of data in Chronicle, a publication that has printed and failed to publish retractions/corrections for dozens of errors and failures to do research already (and no doubt with more on the way in issue 50), where the information is completely and totally without precedent, contradicts what's in the animation, established conventions in the show's universe, and the other assertions that source is making about the mecha. When one lines up perfectly with everything and the other is out in left field contradicting everything including itself, it ought to be a no-brainer which one is correct. Chronicle is NOT infallible.

Long post is long... bear with me, and my apologies for the length in advance. I wanted to make sure all my bases were covered. Oh no, it's even screwier than that... On the packaging of the Bandai 1/65 scale VF-19S toy, the thrust rating provided is the 78,950kg x 2 rating, but it lists the VF-19S as having the same twelve medium-range high maneuverability missiles as the VF-19 Kai. By the opposite token, the Bandai 1/100 model kit lists the thrust rating as 68,500kg x 2, and says that its leg bays take a total of 48 high-maneuverability micro-missiles instead. Egan's Macross Compendium article cites the 78,950kg x 2 thrust figure as being the correct one, and lists BOTH missile options as accurate (swappable pallets and all). Chronicle takes a bizarre approach and lists a totally unprecedented thrust figure (68,950kg x 2), and inexplicably lists the VF-19F/S as having room for only 12 high-maneuverability micro-missiles, while the VF-19 Kai is listed (correctly) as having 12 medium-range high-maneuverability missiles. Actually, we have four sources... the 1/100 kit, the 1/65 toy, the Macross Compendium, and Macross Chronicle. Insofar as the first three sources... the model and toy stats contradict each other on the subject of engine thrust, but not armaments (technically). Egan's Compendium piece lists the 78,950kg x 2 for reasons that are currently unclear, but the 78,950kg x 2 vs the VF-19F's 72,500kg x 2 is consistent with the established practice of giving leader variants greater engine power than the "grunt" model both in the same series (VF-17D/S) and Macross as a whole. The listing of both missile complements is fine, since it's been down since Plus that the leg bays can take a variety of ordinance. In the Compendium article's stats, we have something that supports both the animation and the other things the text is telling us about its performance. Now, how can we be sure what's printed in Chronicle is an error? The error is immediately obvious, as is how it occurred. In the case of the engine thrust figures, we can clearly see how the 78,950kg thrust figure was mistyped as 68,950 due to the 6 and 7 keys being next to each other, and how the 72,500kg figure for the -F variant was mistyped as 78,500kg. In both cases, the new digit is immediately adjacent to the number it should've been or the last key used. For the missile complement, it looks like they copied material from a previous article and just changed the text, forgetting to change the number when they changed the missile's type. They've done this sort of copying and introduced similar errors before on other sheets. The "new" information in Chronicle does not support the other statements being made about the fighter's performance on the very same sheet and makes no logical sense. With the "new" numbers printed in Chronicle, it makes no sense for the VF-19S to have a higher rate-of-climb and greater speed at altitude than the VF-19F when the two planes are aerodynamically identical, and the -S has a much lower thrust-to-weight ratio (15.99 to the -F's 18.36) due to being 70kg heavier and having 19,100kg less thrust. Under the specs on the Compendium, it makes perfect sense for the -S to have the higher top speed and better rate-of-climb, as the VF-19S has a much higher T/W ratio (18.32 to the -F's 16.96). It also doesn't make any sense for micro-missiles to take up the same amount of space in the leg bay as a medium-range missile... they're like 1/3 the size, if that. The "new" information is inconsistent with the data provided in other sources, the depiction of the mecha in the animation, and contradicts established convention adhered to by other mecha in the same show and the universe as a whole. We've beaten this one to death, so I don't need to talk about how the new numbers for engine thrust and missile loadings don't come from any previous source. They don't match Emerald Force's combat scenes in the series itself either. Furthermore, it doesn't match the established convention adhered to by other mecha from the same series (VF-17D/S) and previous models, wherein the "leader" version has greater performance than the "grunt" unit. (See VF-0S, VF-1S, VF-17S, etc.) In summation, we have one set of numbers (those on the Macross Compendium) that are consistent with EVERYTHING we're being told about the mecha's performance, and the depiction of the mecha in the series, and the setting in general. Then we have the data in Chronicle and the VF-19 Master File... which doesn't support the animation and makes no bloody sense.

Didn't expect it to get a Tenjin painting... it's just too minor. Any actual data this time, or is it just another "did not do research" sheet?

It doesn't take much to set him off... the Robotech reference/community site I'd talked about building for the disenfranchised of the Robotech fanbase has already been the subject of two of his two-hour attack shows, and we haven't even gotten around to building the damn thing yet. Yeah, pretty much... every now and again on Robotech.com there'd be a thread done in the form of "Hey! <D-LIST CELEB> <MENTIONED/MIGHT BE A FAN OF> Robotech!", and there'd be a bit of a brouhaha over it, as though it proved that Robotech still mattered. The only one I vividly recall apart from Tobey was Wil Wheaton (TNG's Wesley Crusher).

True... but there has to have been some reason for Egan to take the 78,950kg x 2 thrust figure and 48x high-maneuverability micro-missiles figures over the 68,500kg x 2 thrust figure and 12x missiles total. By the look of the model/toy packaging scans that Graham posted, it looks like at some point they made a deliberate decision to go with the more high-performance of the two options, and for them to suddenly represent it as being far less capable for no established reason is cause to suspect the alleged changes are just part of a slew of minor errors printed in Chronicle. That the VF-19 Master File appears to have reprinted them is just unfortunate, but it doesn't diminish the book's "cool factor" by any means. I'm kind of surprised that the toys show the line art for the VF-19F/S variant of the GU-15, but Master File doesn't. You'd think that sort of thing would be right up their alley, and that they might concoct a reason for why the five cooling vents on each side of the barrel vanished on the production model... (Mr March and I had a real head-scratcher moment when we first noticed that during color-checking on his VF-19F/S art) Were I actually doing any of that, I would happily oblige you... but I'm not. Not here, not elsewhere, and not in the quote you made from my post. There's a world of difference between what I said and what you're accusing me of saying. It's high time you set aside this prima donna routine of yours and stop throwing a hissy fit or ignoring others when they disagree with your theories. Now can we please stop this sniping match and get back to talking about the book? Thank you. I'm game. Mooching off Talos's copy so I can give you a quick answer... you're right about the HMMP-15 designation, but the diagram appears to show two HMMP-15 launcher assemblies installed in each bay. It looks like (Talo's reckoning here) the "long" version is an extended and tapered version of the "short" version, which appears to be the model of missile installed in Basara's VF-19 Kai in Macross 7. So it's the "short" model that allows six missiles to fit into each leg launcher assembly.

Yeah, that's about the letter of it... and when you think about it like that, it makes the Robotech lunatic fringe sound more and more like a religious cult. For them, no amount of evidence is sufficient to disprove the "truth" they find in quoting Tommy Yune and Kevin McKeever out-of-context. For those who don't believe (aka "those who've got working brains"), no proof is necessary because we know Tommy and Kevin are idiots, and that what the believers are reading into their quotes isn't actually what's being said. Let's not forget the crusades by their most (blindly) devoted followers to purge the unbelievers and the heretics (Macross fans) from their "holy land" (Robotech.com).

*sigh* I really need to stop reading this thread when I have neither my copy of Master File nor my Chronicle binders on hand. It's sounding like they REALLY dropped the ball with the VF-19 sheet... we see them fire more than that pretty much every time Emerald Force is ordered to sortie. Sounds like another error introduced in Chronicle by using sections copied and pasted from other articles. I'll review those two model/toy sheets again to see what they have to say once I get home... it would explain a lot if one is saying 12 medium-range high-maneuver missiles, and the other's saying 48 micro-missiles. Maybe I should just give the VF-19 up as a bad job and stick to working on translations for mecha where they don't keep playing silly frackers with the stats. No, I didn't... of course my access to the VF-19 Master File book is limited since I'm mooching off Talos's while I wait for my copy to arrive. I'm guessing sketchley didn't either. We have one set of values that makes sense and has remained essentially unaltered for over 10 years (the version on the Compendium), one set of numbers that looks like it'd gotten itself retconned out right away, and one "new" set from a Chronicle sheet that becomes more and more nonsensical the deeper we dig into it. You do the math.

Understandable... we got a bit off-topic while discussing the accuracy of the info that it's presenting. The Variable Fighter Master File VF-19 Excalibur is a book. Long story short, sketchley pointed out that Kawamori is credited as the book's "supervisor" (whatever that means) and that it might mean that unlike the MAT book that preceded it, the Master File series might be meant to be official. This prompted us to debate the accuracy of the contents, incl. its reiteration of an apparent typographical error (and subsequent nonsensical justification) in the VF-19F/S sheets in Macross Chronicle, pointing to the data in the Macross Compendium and how one digit was changed from the original number. sketchley suggested the opposite, that it was an intentional change. So, naturally, both azrael and sketchley asked if we were sure it was a typo, and suggested Egan's numbers, rather than Chronicle, could've been the typo, launching us onto our present tack of attempting to confirm where the original engine thrust numbers for the VF-19F/S in the Macross Compendium were obtained from... which we appear to have found courtesy of Graham. In summation, it's looking like the Master File might've been delayed while they waited on Chronicle's writers to do the VF-19 sheets so they wouldn't contradict it, and in the process, copied the typos too. The aforementioned suspected typo stated the VF-19S's engine thrust as 68,950kg, whereas the original number was 78,950kg, the new number being suspect because it's at odds with the VF-19S's greater rate of climb and higher top speed compared to the VF-19F, and that it's running counter to the usual Macross practice of giving "ace" machines more thrust than the grunt model. Chronicle also gave the -F a higher thrust rating of 78,500kg (the original we've had since 1997 was 72,500kg), which makes the VF-19S's supposedly superior performance with heavier weight and much less thrust that much harder to swallow.

It's possible... but I suspect there were probably others as well. There had to be some kind of motivation for him to cite 78,950kg as the correct number and 68,500kg as being no longer valid. I don't have any evidence to back it up right now, by I have a nagging feeling that if we do find out, it'll have to do with the VF-19F's 72,500kg rating. Seems that way... and I have a pretty good idea how it happened. It wouldn't be all that hard for someone to mistake the more familiar 24 missiles total to mean 24 missiles per leg instead, thus doubling the number from 24 to 48. That Chronicle's writers cited the 12-per-side and appear to have typo'd the 78,950kg figure does point to the 1/65 toy as the more accurate of the two, stats-wise. Which figure did Master File cite, or did it even try? (Possibly coincidental, but 12-per-side figures gives the VF-19F/S the same missile count, sans-hardpoints, as the VF-1 Super Valkyrie, as per the official cutaways which were reprinted in Chronicle) I also find it somewhat interesting that the writers of Chronicle used the same ventless GU-15 line art on the 1/65 box rather than version the YF-19 used that had the vents over the barrel assembly. The GU-15A stuff that Talos showed me in Master File had the gunpod down as having the cooling vents.

Huh... well, you're certainly on top of things. I hadn't even gotten around to looking and you've already found it. I think I can answer your question though. According to the model number printed on that box scan you posted, the Bandai 1/65 scale VF-19 Special DX "Blazer Valkyrie" was released in May 1995, and the Bandai 1/100 scale Valkyrie VF-19S Emerald Force plastic model (which I think is the one to which you are referring) was released in August 1995. Based on that, it's looking like the 78,950kg x 2 figure was actually the original, and the 68,500kg x 2 was an error or something. Just in case anyone wants to doublecheck, I found the release date info here. You can search by the code over the UPC and that should take you right to the data you want.

It's nothing new... their whole counterargument against the Tokyo court system's rulings about the ownership of Macross and its contents was made of remarks made by Alan Letz and Tommy Yune taken out of context to a ridiculous degree.

Wait, WHAT? Are you serious? (You sure we're talking about the same show here?) When was the last time we even saw a VF engaging targets at long range using long range ordinance? The ONLY example that I can think of is the opening fight scene in DYRL! Like 99.9999% of combat in Macross occurs at EXTREMELY short ranges, and usually with micro-missiles! Excluding Operation Stargazer and the opening bit of the battle between the YF-19 and YF-21 in Macross Plus, I don't think we've ever even seen the VF-19 or VF-22 equipped with long range ordinance, and in both cases it was either used not at all or used at extremely short ranges. That's not even close to what Graham said... what he actually DID say was that it would be interesting to see if Chronicle or other sources backed up his theory that the more streamlined VF-19F/S was meant to be a design with improved overall performance that would eventually replace the VF-19A. He also had this to say about the alleged retcon thrust figures that form the core of your theory: I'm retching a little just thinking about it... gonna have to have Talos show me that one later. Yeah, I'm getting that vibe too... I vaguely remember some fighter from Gundam doing something along those lines... I think it was from the UC, but I can't remember which show.

Um... there was never a time when that guy wasn't five beers short of a six pack dude... you must've just caught him during one of his brief interludes of not being a complete jackass. He hasn't changed one jot in the seven or so years since I first met him back during the days when Robotech.com wasn't a complete sack of crap. Case in point... Who're you kidding? RTX is run by, and moderated by, the members of the Robotech lunatic fringe. The only reason Bendo hasn't been reinstated there and given a mod post too (like Maverick_LSC and JuanRT got) is because MEMO's co-admin SIGHUP said that the only way he'd permit it is if MEMO reinstated me too... something MEMO would NEVER EVER do because I exposed him as an ignorant ass far too many times for him to be comfortable with it. I did find it funny that, after Bendo got banned from RTX he swore up and down he'd never go back... then just a few months later he tried creeping back under half a dozen different pseudonyms, only to get banned again each time, and topping it off by proclaiming that since they tossed him out the site must really be MacrossWorld 2.0.

No no no... they're gonna do the game first, and then make a shitty movie based on it and attach Uwe Boll to direct. It'll be like House of the Dead, just with giant robots. Y'know, I half-expect this to be headline news on RobotechX.com tomorrow. Dammit guys... stop writing his material for him! BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! TOMMY YUNE BOUGHT A NEW PAIR OF SNEAKERS! WHAT COULD THIS MEAN FOR THE ROBOTECH LAM?

Helped along, of course, by some astonishingly gullible people.

You and me both... unfortunately unless my buddy Greg writes me back quickly, I'm not likely to be the one who discovers it, since like 80% of my Macross collection (excl. Chronicle) is for Macross II and its related titles. At the very least, we've narrowed it down a bit to something published before October 1997. Still waitin' on my copy of Master File to arrive, but from what I've seen it looks like the parts I was hoping they'd lavish detail on (the GU-15 and the munitions bays in the legs) didn't get nearly as much coverage as I would've liked.

Ooookay... I'm not sure why MEMO thinks this is a revelation or anything unexpected? It doesn't mean Warner's serious about the Robotech-in-name-only live action movie, it's standard practice for any film with merchandising potential. If they didn't retain merchandising rights to a movie they made and it became a hit, the stockholders would crucify them. It doesn't mean Warner's fast-tracking the movie because it's a sure-fire success. It doesn't even mean Warner thinks they'll make the movie. All they're doing is hedging their bets while they have the license. Business as usual... the illiterate idiots of the Robotech lunatic fringe see a perfectly mundane piece of film industry news and assume that it means great things are happening for Robotech, and that the live-action movie is destined for greatness. It'd be hilarious if they didn't do it every other week.

After a cursory review of the original Compendium articles, they're definitely intended to denote old data that's been revised/retconned. Atmospheric thrust ratings are, on the few times they're provided, noted explicitly and separately, as on the YF-19 article. It seems safe to say the FAQ statement about the use of brackets applies across the entire site. In any case, it appears that the VF-19S's original thrust figure of 68,500kgf x 2 was revised to 78,950kgf x 2 almost right away. If your old print-out of the Compendium doesn't have the VF-19F thrust figure of 72,500kgf x 2, then that might explain what the motivation for the change was... keeping it in line with the general practice of having officer units with slightly greater engine power than the standard variant. What I think happened here is the Master File's writers decided to delay publication of the VF-19 book until they could make sure their numbers were in line with Chronicle, and as a result inadvertently duplicated the typos printed in Chronicle. It's not gonna stop me from buying the VF-19 Master File. Even if it isn't canon and it has a few mistakes, it's still wicked cool stuff. You're not alone in that... that's how I initially read it too.

Okay... I see two problems with this, but you've already foreseen one of them. The key that Egan provided (and Sketchley pointed out, and then resolutely ignored as soon as he'd noticed it contradicted his own argument) indicates that the data in brackets is material that's been revised/retconned. For reasons we can only guess at, the original number you found (68,500 x 2) was revised/retconned to 78,950 x 2. This brought the -S variant's performance into line with what we'd expect from a "leader" model. The change was apparently made fairly soon after the original number came out... even the earliest iterations of the Compendium article I could recover (1997 October 04) list the revised thrust rating of 78,950kgf x 2. Why wouldn't they optimize it for space? If we take Chronicle at face value, that's not the first time that's happened either (in-universe). If memory serves, the VF-4 was the main space bird of its day, while the VF-5000 was for planetside shenanigans. It feels weird for me to read about that too... an odd case of Macross II-isms intruding onto the main continuity. (Now if the linear actuator turns out to be Zentradi tech, you'll see what happens when my brain does the equivalent of a 4-to-1 downshift without the aid of a clutch) Still, as you've pointed out the idea that they would sacrifice the VF-19S's performance in space in exchange for enhanced atmospheric performance makes no sense either. I guess we could take the approach Mr March did in our analysis of it on M3...

Issues of giant robot feasibility aside, Kawamori and co. have at least a half-decent working grasp of the physics involved in powered flight and aerodynamics. It seems rather unfeasible that they intentionally generated an error that basic and obvious when they had a perfectly viable number that under which the other assertions about its flight performance (comparatively with the VF-19F) fit just fine.

Thanks for that... that's a big help. Now we know where the VF-19S's original (pre-1st revision) thrust figure comes from. Still gotta figure out where the revised figure of 78,950 that preceded Chronicle's odd assertion of 68,950 came from. Putting aside the questions of the source's accuracy, that would be a highly plausible explanation for the VF-19P being sold with the same engines as the military model, but lower thrust ratings. Detuning the engines would lower the fighter's performance, but extend their operating lifespan... thus reducing the maintenance costs. Something that, given that in the official continuity sources reduced cost has been a major factor in colonial gov't decisions to adopt various models of VF. The thrust ratings on Egan's site make sense and support the related assertions we're being asked to accept... IE that the VF-19S has a superior rate of climb and a higher top speed. The new numbers don't. That's a pretty clear indication that something's amiss. I do wonder when the 78,950 figure came along... somehow I have a feeling it came along when they introduced the 72,500 figure for the VF-19F, to keep with the established convention that "leader" variants have more powerful engines than the grunt version. EDIT: Gone back to the earliest editions of the Compendium (1997 version of the VF-19 article) and the amended numbers of 72,500 for the VF-19F and 78,950 for the VF-19S are still there. No indication of source, but that change was clearly made fairly soon after that model kit came out, no later than 4 October 1997. That it hasn't been altered in better than a decade of updates and maintenance seems like a fair indication that it's accurate, whatever the source was.

The temptation to respond to this post of yours with "Too arrogant, didn't read" is very strong. Do us all a favor and stop trying to handwave aside the opinions and thoughts of your fellow contributors here whenever they're inconvenient to your personal theories. Or we could take the opposite route: VF-19F 72,500 -> 78,500 = 1 digit difference VF-19S 78,950 -> 68,950 = 1 digit difference VF-19S 68,500 -> 68,950 = 2 digit difference We can also illustrate that there's a major shift in thrust from the most recent set of figures: VF-19F 72,500 -> 78,500 = +6,000kgf VF-19S 78,950 -> 68,950 = -10,000kgf WTF! We have a clearly established case for this being a simple typographical error on the part of whoever was doing data entry. One and only one digit was changed in each case, and there's a clear indication of how it went awry. I would very much like to hear your explanation for how with two aerodynamically identical aircraft, the heavier one with less thrust has a higher top speed at altitude and a greater rate of climb. I'd also be very interested to hear your reasons for why, if this "new" number is really official, the U.N. Spacy has suddenly reversed its previously established convention and started giving squadron leaders aircraft that are less capable than the grunt machine. It doesn't hold water Sketchley, no matter how much you want it to. And there is absolutely no evidence of any kind to indicate that this was intended as a revision, given that it runs counter to material on its own sheet in Macross Chronicle, and makes no sense when examined with even the most basic grasp of physics.